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Charles Benjamin Adams (1882-1968) was one of the most remarkable control pitchers in baseball history. The superlatives just keep coming: only rookie to win 3 WS games (and, until Lackey in ’02, only rookie to win game 7); lowest rookie ERA ever at 1.11; fewest walks in a season of over 250 innings (18 in 1920 AFTER recovering from sore arm.) Still ranks at or near top of Pirate pitching records, the team for which he played virtually his whole career. Only pitcher with a better walk ratio in 20th Century was his Pittsburgh teammate Deacon Phillippe. Held Ty Cobb to 1 for 11 in the ’09 Series during his 3 complete games. Held Marquard’s Giants without a walk for 21 innings on 7/17/14, never equaled. Lifetime 2995 innings & ERA of 2.76, pitching shut-outs in his 40s. Were it not for intermittent arm troubles throughout his career, this Babe might have a place in Cooperstown.

The Depression forced Adams to work into old age. He entered journalism and covered WWII and Korea as a war correspondent

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Grover Cleveland Alexander (1887-1950) earned his plaque in the Hall of Fame on the strength of his strong right arm and an indomitable spirit. The battered WWI vet fought German mustard gas, epilepsy-inducing artillery, PTSD-induced alcoholism, and opposing hitters, all with honor and distinction. It is impossible to know the record he would have achieved but for the interruption of the war.

Led the NL in ERA: 1915, ‘16, ‘17, ‘19, and ‘20

Led GIs into battle in 1918

Named after President Grover Cleveland, was sometimes referred to as Alexander the Great orOld Pete, but friends and family called him Dode.

Said of his induction into the HOF: “the greatest treat and one of the biggest thrills” of his life

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John Franklin Baker (1886-1963) was released by his minor league mgr who declared he “could not hit.” Connie Mack needed a 3rd baseman and gave Baker a try at the end of the 1908 season. Baker played 13 years exclusively at 3rd. He wielded his 52-oz bat like no other in the dead ball era.

Led the AL in HRs 4 straight years for the Athletics

Helped Connie Mack’s team to 3 Series victories, closed his career with Babe Ruth’s Yankees

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John Joseph Barry (1887-1961) was part of Connie Mack’s “$100,000” infield, with Stuffy McInnis, Eddie Collins and Home Run Baker, winning 4 pennants and 3 Series from 1910-14. Barry won even greater fame after retiring from MLB. He coached Holy Cross for 40 years, earning one of the highest winning % in collegiate history (.806).

Helped the Red Sox win the ’15 & ‘16 Series, then managed the club in 1917

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Charles Albert Bender (1884-1954) won 212 games en route to a Hall of Fame career. He began life amid the abject poverty of a Minnesota reservation, was mentored by Pop Warner at the Carlisle Indian School and hit the majors with a bang for the Athletics in 1903. “Albert” as Connie Mack called him, beat future Hall members Cy Young and Clark Griffith compiling 17 wins in his rookie season. He led the league 3x in win percentage but was at his best under pressure. In 5 World Series, Bender won 6 games with a 2.44 ERA and completed 9 of his 10 starts.

Connie Mack said that of all his players he would most trust Bender to win in the clutch

Admired for his brilliance, Ty Cobb dubbed him the most intelligent pitcher he ever faced

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William Aloysius Bergen (1878-1943) spent 11 years in the majors carving out a special spot in the record books: worst hitter of all time. No one with more than 2500 ABs ever went lower than Bergen’s .170 lifetime average. And it wasn’t even close. Pitcher Pud Galvin is next at 201.

Bergen’s two career HRs were inside-the-park

Until Mark Lemke in 1997, no one surpassed Bergen’s record of not being hit-by-pitch in 3228 ABs

Bergen played 11 years because he was one of the game’s best defensive catchers

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Walter Allen Blair (1883-1948) was a back-up catcher for the NY Highlanders from 1907-1911. After a two year absence from MLB, Blair finished his career with the Federal League’s Buffalo Blues. Those two years with the “outlaw” Federal League were his most productive offensively and he even served as manager for a doubleheader.

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Roger Bresnahan (1879-1944) played every position but came into his own as a lead-off-hitting catcher and battery mate to Christy Mathewson for John McGraw’s Giants. Innovation took guts in a rowdy era and he had the fortitude to introduce shin guards, batting helmets and padded masks over the protests of other clubs and the pelting of irate fans (who didn’t have to catch Mathewson.)

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Mordecai Peter Centennial Brown (1876-1948) gained the Hall of Fame on the strength of a wicked curve, enhanced by childhood accidents that cost him parts of two fingers on his “twirling” hand. He won 20+ for the Cubs six times from 1904-12 with two world championships.

Career record of 239-130 and the 3rd best ERA of all time: 2.06

Had legendary duels with Giants’ Christy Mathewson, and went 13-11 against him

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Owen Joseph Bush (1887-1972) played in the Deadball Era instead of the Moneyball Era, hence he isn’t held in the esteem his record would enjoy today. The diminutive SS wrote the book on small ball, a keen eye enabling him to lead the league in walks five times. He hit .250 but was so adept at getting on base he was at or near the top in runs scored. Legends grow around the sluggers who drive in the runs, but Donie was out there for Cobb, Crawford and Heilmann to pick up. Equally proficient at short, Bush had a lifetime .937 fielding % and still owns the record for 425 putouts in 1914. In addition, his speed produced over 400 stolen bases.

“Donie” was a misprint for his real nickname, Ownie, but it stuck

Clark Griffith recognized managerial talent and hired Bush for the ’23 season. Bush then had the “thrill” of taking the Pirates to the ’27 Series against the Yankee bombers and being swept

Bush continued in baseball, compiling a 65-year career and was beloved in his home Indianapolis

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Max George Carey (1890-1976) was “harder to stop than a run in a silk stocking” per Joe Williams. A superb center fielder with a fine lifetime BA of .285, it was on the base paths that he made his mark with the Pirates and Robins. Saving his best for (nearly) the last, Carey led Pittsburgh to the pennant with a .343 BA, and to the title with a .458 Series average in 1925.

In 1922 was successful in steals 51 of 53 attempts and led the NL ten times

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Frank Leroy Chance (1876-1924) was a tenacious and fiercely competitive MLB player-manager for the Cubs and Yankees and manager of the Red Sox. John L. Sullivan called him the “greatest amateur brawler of all time.” Chance brought that pugilistic spirit to the diamond, giving unruly fans and players as good as he got.

Joined the fraternity of the immortals in Cooperstown with the teammates with whom he is forever linked: Johnny Evers and Joe Tinker

Cubs’ owner gave Chance a 10% stake in the club as reward for stealing home from 2nd in a tied game

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Harold Homer Chase (1883-1947) may have been among the best first-basemen ever, but his “errors” place him as mediocre at best. His own words are his epitaph: “I am an outcast, and I haven’t a good name. I’m the loser, just like all gamblers are.” A star for the NY Highlanders for the first nine years of the franchise, admired by peers such as Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson, Chase even went on to out-poll dozens of later entrants into the Hall of Fame. Such was his prowess at first and plate. But his compulsion to wager, and the ease of access to illicit betting (the bookies were in the front row) consigned this great player to ignominy.

Chase’s spiral from NY idol to deportee from Mexico evidenced his inability to stay straight in an era when the crooked path was wide and inviting

Chase was banned from baseball for life by commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis in 1922 for his (unsubstantiated) role in the 1919 Black Sox scandal

Despite the controversy that consumed his career, Chase received more HOF votes in 1936 than 18 future HOFers, and more votes in 1937 than 32 future HOFers, but he never appeared on the ballot again

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Edward Victor “Knuckles” Cicotte (1884-1969) won 208 games and a World Series with the White Sox in 1917. The Sporting News said in 1918 that “Perhaps no pitcher in the world has such a varied assortment of wares….” But it was Eddie’s first pitch of the 1919 Series that plunked Morrie Rath in the back and signaled the fix was in. No one was ever convicted of the infamous Black Sox scandal but Cicotte, with seven teammates, never played ML ball after his tearful confession following the ’20 season.

Cicotte, Shoeless Joe, and other banned Sox players went on to barnstorm under false names

His mastery of the knuckleball led to a transformation of his career. His control improved to the point of walking only 89 in 572 innings in 1918/19 combined.

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Fred Clifford Clarke (1872-1960) broke into MLB in a big way, going 5 for 5 in his 1st game (never bettered.) This Hall-of-Famer starred with the Pirates along with Honus Wagner and Vic Willis, winning 4 of the 9 titles held by the Pittsburgh franchise. Was player-mgr most of his career.

Hit over .300 eleven times, his .390 in ’97 was bested only by Wee Willie Keeler

Honored at Cooperstown as the “first of the successful ‘boy managers’” at age 24

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Tyrus Raymond Cobb (1886-1961) swept over the baseball landscape like a tidal wave. He lived by a fierce code that drove him to greatness and others to distraction. At the end, his own words could be his epitaph: “But I beat the bastards and left them in the ditch.”

Cobb never won a World Series and performed with mediocrity in his only three tries

No one of his era came close to the impact, for good or ill, made by this snarling Tiger

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Leonard Leslie Cole (1886-1916) went 20-4 with the 1910 Cubs in his second season, still the best winning % in 20th C. franchise history and led them to a pennant. After another great year in ’11 was traded to Pirates. Ill health plagued him and he missed the ’13 season, and died of TB after a very short 1915 season.

Pitching for the Yankees in 1914, surrendered Babe Ruth’s first ML hit, a double

Said to have been Ring Lardner’s model for “Alibi Ike,” beloved in short story and film

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Edward Trowbridge Collins Sr. (1887-1951) was sold by Connie Mack to the White Sox in 1915 for the amazing sum of $50,000. His salary put him behind only Cobb and Speaker. He left the “$100,000 infield” of the Athletics for what would become the most notorious team in MLB history. He never believed the rumored “fix” for the Sox in 1919 and survived the scandal to lead the team in its aftermath.

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James Joseph Collins (1870-1943) was the best in the NL at 3B when he jumped to the new AL in 1901. Collins led the Boston Americans to the 1st World Series championship in ’03, downing Pittsburgh in best-of-nine. Thanks to John McGraw’s stubborn refusal to play the next year’s AL winner, Boston was denied another opportunity despite its 1st place finish.

The dust-up between leagues resulted in rules beginning in 1905 making the Series the permanent premier event in Major League Baseball

Upon his induction into the HOF Collins became the first regular third-baseman so honored

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Thomas Henry Connolly (1870-1961) was a young English immigrant who became so fascinated by the strange game of baseball that he resolved to learn as much as he could about it. He devoured the rule book, began umpiring in Massachusetts and was discovered by a big league ump. So began a half-century career ending with election to the Hall of Fame as one of the first two officials so honored (with Bill Klem).

Found his niche in the American League, officiating its first game on April 24, 1901

From 1931 to 1954 was AL supervisor of umpires, assuring integrity and consistency in the game he knew as well as any man

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John Wesley Coombs (1882-1957) pitched for the Athletics, Robins and Tigers over 13 years, but it was his magical 1910 season that made a permanent mark on MLB. 31-9, 1.30 ERA, 353 innings, 35 CG, and the still standing record of 13 shutouts. A year for the ages!

In one 16-day stretch in 1910 he pitched 10 complete games and relieved in 2 more

Went on to a successful college coaching career till forced to retire from Duke at age 70

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Stanley Anthony Coveleski (1889-1984) was one of 17 pitchers grandfathered into the spitball fraternity when the pitch was otherwise outlawed in 1920. His skill with the loaded ball, making it dance “like a butterfly” enabled this veteran to win 20+ games five times and earn a berth in Cooperstown. Signed by Connie Mack at the end of the 1912 season, Coveleski threw a shutout in his first ML appearance. Still, Mack thought he needed development and sent him back to the minors. Came into his own with Cleveland from 1916-24, winning 3 complete games in the 1920 Series.

Once pitched 7 innings without throwing a ball. Had 224 complete games.

On May 24, 1918 hurled a 19-inning complete game victory over the Yankees

Feigned the spitter on every pitch but claimed he used it only every two or three innings

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Clifford Carlton Cravath (1881-1963) was the “home-run king of baseball” before being deposed by the Babe. His nickname derived from the seagull (gaviota in Spanish) he supposedly killed in flight during a PCL game for the Angels. Cravath labored in the obscurity of West Coast ball for 5 years before getting the call to Boston in 1908. His lack of speed offset his batting strength and he was sold to the White Sox that season and bounced back into the minors until he caught on at age 31 with the Phillies becoming the leading power hitter of the Deadball Era. Led the Phils to their first pennant in 1915 and led the NL in HRs six times.

Ruth broke Cravath’s career HR record in 1921

In the ’15 Series, his manager inexplicably gave him the bunt sign with the bases loaded and no outs, leading to a double-play grounder to the pitcher

Said to have caused a rule change by intercepting the ball in a rundown, hurling it into the stands, and scoring. Baseball decided to stop allowing that

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Samuel Earl Crawford (1880-1968) needed a couple more weeks among his 19 ML seasons to reach 3000 hits, finishing with 2961 and the all-time record for triples. “Wahoo Sam” teamed with Ty Cobb for 3 straight Series appearances ‘07-09. Neither did well or won a title. Nevertheless, the renowned manager who made Babe Ruth an outfielder said there was never a better hitter than Crawford. This Nebraska farm kid was considered the strongest hitter of his day and consistently ranked in the top 10 in slugging.

Playing in the big Deadball Era parks, speedy Crawford set the record for inside-the-park HRs

Debuting with Cincinnati in 1899, Crawford hit .307 as the youngest player in the majors

A model of moderation, he rarely struck out, walked or reacted to teammate Cobb’s tirades

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William Fredrick Dahlen (1870-1950) retired after 21 years for four ML clubs having played in more games than any other big leaguer. He was one of the most productive hitters of his era and a prolific shortstop (7,500 assists, 13,325 chances—still the record.) His 42-game hitting streak in 1894 is still the longest by a NL right-hander. “Bad Bill” (a fiery temper) led Brooklyn to titles his first two years with the franchise and finished his superb career as the Superbas’ player-manager 1910-13. Getting his wish to play for the Giants, he led the league in RBI in 1904 and provided great defense in the team’s first World Series win in ‘05.

Dahlen is still being considered for Cooperstown. He came close in 2012, falling two votes short

That year SABR’s 19th Century Committee named him the “Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legend” recognizing great early players not in the Hall of Fame